My True Love Gave to Me
by HecateA
Summary: Percy's twelve days of Christmas to Annabeth during a romantic moratorium. Oneshot. Happy holidays, folks!


**Happy holidays everyone! I wrote you some fluff because 'tis the season. I hope you're all having happy, safe holidays. Eat some turkey for me. Love you all.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters portrayed below. Also I'm having technical difficulties with my kidneys right now (nothing serious, just routine stones) and so you'll have to excuse the crappy editing.**

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><p><strong>My True Love Gave to Me<strong>

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><p>If the choice had been given to him, Percy wouldn't have fallen for a daughter of Athena. It wasn't because of how his girlfriend's mom hated his guts, or how scary Annabeth could get, or how he'd never ever dream of being smarter than her because honestly those things all contributed to making Annabeth the girl he loved.<p>

The problem was her faith and investment in the public education system (a system in which Percy himself had lost hope a long time ago).

Percy _accidentally _let it slip that his semester was difficult _just one time, _and suddenly she was all over his academic success and stuff. Sure, he had English _and _math _and _biology in one semester, with American history and psychology on the side. And yeah, okay, this semester was wearing Percy out and he couldn't wait for it to be over even before the pre-Christmas break crunch made the teachers barf out projects and labs and tests and essays to complete.

_But that didn't mean that he wanted his girlfriend to vanish from his social life for the twelve days leading up to Christmas break. _

He'd find other ways to procrastinate anyways…

But as soon as the idea had popped into Annabeth that maybe they should take a break from Thursday-night-date-night and two hour Iris Message conversations so that Percy could navigate the flood of schoolwork crashing down on him, she refused to let go.

"You've focused and worked hard all semester," she'd argued. "I don't want you to get overwhelmed and panicky and end up doing nothing."

"So maybe the solution is to actually supervise me more," Percy said. "We could have a study date again. That was fun."

"It was fun, but we both know it wasn't because of the studying."

"Yeah we do," Percy said. "But we still want to do that again, right?"

"After December 13th, when school's out for the holidays," Annabeth said. She'd kissed him on the nose. "And then we have _all _winter break at camp."

Percy had argued that they could have all winter break and the twelve days leading up to Christmas break, but he knew deep down that Annabeth was decided. As much as she bitched about the education system in the United States, she deeply cared about Percy graduating from high school with more than pity passing grades.

He had to accept and love that about her.

Gods, it made him miss her more too. He was going to have to find a compromise.

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><p><em><strong>On the first day of Christmas <strong>_

**_My true love gave to me:_**

**A partridge in a pear tree**

Annabeth had booked a computer in the lab for the evening to use an advanced design program to work out a kink in Hera's palace on Olympus. She had to fix it before the goddess noticed and got pissed, which was complicated given in the barricades that the Olympians had put up for gods know what reason.

It wasn't easy to get some time at the computers on December 5th. Everyone was freaking out about projects and portfolios for college applications- but she figured that her matter was more life-and-death since it concerned a bitter goddess. Annabeth stood her ground against a rude twelfth grader to earn her evening at the lab and skipped dinner to make sure no hysterical senior took her computer.

Her stomach was growling by the time she got to her dorm room but hey, at least she'd figured out how to not earn herself a new entourage of cow turds. She hoped that there were ramen noodles left in the stash but she knew deep down that Roslyn and Kim had probably scarfed them down for dinner as they studied. It pained her.

She was going through her bag looking for change and daydreaming of Kit-Kats and vending machine Twinkies for dinner when she was tracked down by her head of dorm, Lisa, and her mail cart.

"You have mail, Annabeth," she said in her fluty Italian voice. Lisa was rumoured to bake traditional Italian deserts during the holidays so hearing her made her stomach growl.

"Oh, thanks," Annabeth said. "It's probably from my dad."

Then she frowned. No, he said he'd mail Annabeth's Christmas present to camp for her… Malcolm had even called to confirm that the package was waiting on her bunk for her.

Lisa handed her a small package. Like a little girl on Christmas morning Annabeth shook the box next to her ear. It sounded like marbles were rolling around the box. She looked at the return address and frowned when she recognised Percy's address. Except the sender's name had been replaced with "Your True Love who Gave to You".

Skeptically she opened the present in her room and saw a Christmas tree cut out in green cardboard on which dozens of candies had been tacked. They were small, green and individually wrapped hard candies from their favorite Asian fusion place (which was cheap, good, quick, friendly and monster-free). Percy and Annabeth were what you may call "frequent flyers" there and they got a handful of these candies when they settled their tab. Percy hated them thanks to a dislike of hard candies in general and a particular aversion to pears as a fruit, so Annabeth had a whole bunch of them. They were like bedding at the bottom of her bag.

Only when she spotted the tiny chicken-bird drawn on the tree did she get it. _A partridge in a pear tree. _

It gave her a good enough laugh for her roommates to start asking questions.

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><p><strong>Two turtledoves <strong>

Percy must be a blast at Christmas exchanges. His gag gifts were the best.

Today he'd drawn an enormous white bird on a poster and tapped two boxes of Dove soap where the wings should be before rolling the whole thing up and mailing it to her.

"Two turtledoves," Annabeth hummed to herself as she did her homework. She popped a pear candy in her mouth. "And a partridge in a pear tree…"

"Someone's feeling especially festive," Roslyn said as she modeled a new dress in front of the particularly slim mirror behind their door.

"Tis the season," Annabeth said.

"It's never anything good when French homework's involved," she said nudging her chin towards the homework Annabeth was losing her mind over. Dyslexia made English and physics hard enough, but when Annabeth _knew _things the guesswork and estimation and puzzling out of words came easier. French? What a pain in the _podex_. Forget it. And Annabeth had made no effort whatsoever to hide her distaste for _les participes passés. _

Annabeth shrugged Roslyn off and kept on humming. "On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…"

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><p><strong>Three French hens<strong>

Annabeth frowned at first when she saw the content of today's package, which Roslyn had gathered from Lisa and left on her pillow for her.

Three empty coffee cups from the coffee joint Annabeth was notoriously addicted to had been wrapped up in grey silk paper and carefully stashed on the box. At first she didn't quite get it, but a smile broke out on her face when she saw what had been written by the barista on the lid of each cup. _FV_. Short for _French vanilla, _which Annabeth was even more addicted to.

She grinned despite herself. What a Seaweed Brain.

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><p><strong>Four calling birds<strong>

Annabeth smiled at the bookmark slipped into an envelope in which the only other point of interest was a letter proclaiming that ON THE FOURTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME FOUR CALLING BIRDS in Percy's blocky handwriting.

The bookmark was a reference, she knew, to a time when Sally and Annabeth had ganged up on him when he'd made fun of his mom's tendency to use random objects, old receipts, spoons, tissues and even her passport once as bookmarks.

It was a small icon of a bird that you clipped onto the top of a page. A long orange ribbon trailed down the page and peeked out from the other side of the book.

Annabeth switched an old chemistry quiz for her new bookmark in her copy of _Lord of the Flies. _

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><p><strong>Five golden rings<strong>

So Percy had never really given Annabeth jewellery because she'd never really worn any. Except for the camp necklace around her neck, because it was sacred, and the owl earrings her dad had given her because every now and then she needed a reminder that her mortal and godly worlds could interact harmoniously.

But when she got the fifth present in Lisa's mail delivery, she realised what size the box was quickly enough.

Roslyn and Kim were behind her in seconds squealing.

"You guys know what this is," Annabeth said as she ripped apart the Kraft paper wrapping the package.

"Duh," they said. Kim explained furthermore: "We have some of the presents with us, he's done a real good job of organising this- holy crap _that _is beautiful."

Annabeth was kind of shocked too. The ring _was _beautiful in its square box.

A bunch of other girls came to check it out too. Someone eventually snapped her out of her shock, and Annabeth remembered to put the ring on. It looked like a thin golden branch snaking around Annabeth's finger, with the outline of little leaves poking through.

It was simple and cute, but Annabeth smiled.

"The leaves look super thin," one girl criticised.

"They're like olive tree leaves," Annabeth said not too patiently. "This is beautiful."

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><p><strong>Six geese a-laying<strong>

It was a good thing that Annabeth was already going to ace her algebra test: her revision was littered with tiny wind-up toys shaped like birds. Whenever one of the six white birds would slow down or pause, Annabeth would crank it up again and watch it march around her equations and highlighter scratches and post-its.

"You are a _child _deep inside that genius," Kim said. "I knew it."

Ironically enough, she'd told Percy to bugger off and spawned this collection of gifts to make _him _study and focus. It was like his ultimate, albeit unusually passive-aggressive, _no. _

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><p><strong>Seven swans a-swimming<strong>

Annabeth was seriously impressed.

The present had been delivered to the school's head office for her, and Annabeth smiled. It must have taken Percy _ages _to make.

He'd taken the time to write down entire myths in Ancient Greek with an even, stable penmanship and an average of only two spelling mistakes by page. Or at least how _he _remembered ancient Greek myths and thought they went… He'd even drawn little pictures in the corners of the paper or big images in the middle (Annabeth heavily suspected Rachel's involvement and grinned). Then he'd splashed the pages with soya sauce to make them look yellowed with age, and bound all of them together with golden ribbon.

She felt like a little girl reading Harry Potter past curfew again, and she loved it. Annabeth stayed up all night with a flashlight under her blankets giggling and swearing to herself that Percy would never know how funny his book was for fear of encouraging his taste for bad puns.

Okay. The chapter about Zeus seducing Leda in the shape of the swan and uncomfortable places where feathers could end up was pretty good. She'd give him that.

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><p><strong>Eight maids a-milking<strong>

She laughed as she emptied out today's envelope from 'her true love' onto her lap in the common room.

Milk Duds, a bag of Milk Chocolate chocolate chips and Milky Way candy bars all landed on her uniform skirt.

Okay, that was cute. Especially considering how traumatised Percy had been when they'd taken a break from Camp life after the Battle of the Labyrinth to go see a movie and she'd poured Milk Duds into her popcorn. Or how much crap she'd given him when she'd been studying for a physics test at Sally and Paul's place and he'd been stealing chocolate chips from her Ziploc…

She laughed and ripped the wrapper of a Milky Way bar before taking a bite. She was immediately attacked by twenty girls whose periods had all synched and who were craving chocolate despite the dorm's vending machine being empty.

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><p><strong>Nine ladies dancing<strong>

The gift was handed to her by Kim as they elbowed for a spot at the sink to brush their teeth that morning, and it had _Will Solace Helped _written all over it, but Annabeth couldn't care less.

The burned CD made its way into Daedalus' laptop soon enough and Annabeth listened to the music with a smile.

It was all the music from the crazy, intense and victorious Christmas parties that camp had thrown over the summer. Okay, maybe not as much "camp" as "the older campers" since Chiron was mostly in the dark as they turned up the music and busted out the 'apple juice' and Red Bull in Cabin 12's surprisingly big and soundproof "common room".

Some of the songs had been background music to jousting tournaments or drinking games. Some of the music had had everybody on their feet and screaming lyrics. Other songs, which had only come out late in the parties, had been the accompanying track to Percy's heartbeat as they slow danced. None of the music was sad, none of it was vulgar. It was all happy and exhilarating and _alive. _ It was all that Annabeth needed to jog her memory about a summer of dancing.

It made her even more excited to see Percy again in a few hours when Sally picked her up for camp.

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><p>Sally stopped to fill up the Prius before they left New York and as soon as she disappeared in the gas station to pay, Annabeth's arms were around Percy's neck and her lips were on hers.<p>

"Well I was going to _ask _if you'd missed me," Percy said.

Annabeth laughed. "I did. But I felt like you were right there with me _all _December making stupid jokes and dumb puns and teasing me."

"Well that's good," Percy grinned, clearly proud of himself. "But I didn't get any form of compensation."

"Poor baby," Annabeth said, but she kissed him again. Well, it was a bit more than kissing. Annabeth didn't really pay attention to much until Sally tapped on the windows and said _"my eyes are closed for ten more seconds before I walk into the car." _

They wrapped it up in under two seconds, and Sally got into the car. Annabeth could tell that she was biting back a smile.

"Oh and by the way," Percy said rummaging in his backpack. He pulled out a biology test. "95%. How's that for focused during the cram?"

Annabeth laughed and squeezed his hand. "Congratulations. Wow, this really worked out great. We should do this again next year."

Percy's jaw dropped. Annabeth laughed nearly as hard as Sally.

"Don't fight her on this, Percy," Sally said. "Especially once she sees days ten, eleven and twelve."

"I get days ten, eleven and twelve too?" Annabeth asked with a smile.

"What kind of a cheap jerk do you think I am?" Percy scoffed, insulted. Annabeth laughed and rested her head on his shoulder in penance. He kissed her hair and they settled in for the ride.

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><p><strong>A month later<strong>

"How's your contract going?" Annabeth asked, her hands unfolding from her mug of tea and reaching for a cookie.

She enjoyed visiting Sally. She and Paul always had some new tea lying around and Annabeth had claimed her own mug from the array in their cupboards. Sally constantly had fresh baking in the house. Sally was as good at conversation as she was with silence, and sometimes the apartment was just a good place to curl up and read while Paul procrastinated on correction by pacing aimlessly, or while Sally joined Annabeth with her own paperwork. The best part was that she was always welcome to look up and ask a question or burst into a rant about anything. And Sally was perhaps one of the only people to understand what Annabeth was going through spare Grover, and she was so much easier to get in touch with.

"It's going well," Sally said pushing a lock of hair from her face. "I finished revising the first draft before New Year's, and it's back in the author's hands now. I'm back to paperwork for the senior editors."

"That's alright," Annabeth said.

Sally nodded. "It's a great job, even when I'm only doing photocopies. Beats retail, anyways. How's school going? Did you get that physics test back?"

"Yeah, I blew it like I thought I did," Annabeth said biting her lip. "It's not the end of the world. It's what you get when last period's substitute teacher was a _dracanae. _Who followed you into the bathroom during the break."

"Honey, I'm sorry," Sally said holding out her hand. Annabeth took it and took a deep breath to secure herself. She was intelligent. She knew that. She had a critical spirit, her memory was amazing, she could puzzle out riddles, and her problem-solving skills were spot-on. But grades were _hard. _

For all intents and purpose, Annabeth could cure cancer or build the eighth wonder of the world or become the next Socrates raddling out philosophy in the streets if she put her mind to it and worked her ass off. But the problem was the _grades. _The plague on children of Athena everywhere. If Annabeth spelled mitosis "mitoiss" on a test, or switched 42 for 24 in an equation on paper, she was toast. In her head she never made these mistakes, she knew what mitosis was and how it was called, but on paper everything was jumbled. She knew that it wasn't an excuse; that she had to work through her Greek-programing, but it was so scary to think that one day she may not be able to do what she'd always dreamed of, that the only people who considered her as smart as she was were the ones who could die at any point in time like her.

It wasn't helping at all that they were slipping slowly but surely. Sometimes because of monsters, sometimes because of emergency quests within New York when Jason or Piper popped up in her dorm, sometimes because of the insomnia and worry that gnawed at her nearly constantly.

"I should be doing better," Annabeth said, turning her head.

"Listen to me here Annabeth, you are doing _fine," _Sally said. "Especially given the circumstances…"

Annabeth tugged at her curls.

"We just wanted one Christmas," Annabeth said pathetically.

"Annabeth, they would've taken him from the apartment if not from camp, and then it would've taken even longer to realise that something was wrong," Sally reasoned.

"Logically I know," Annabeth said. "But I… We haven't had one restful summer since we turned twelve, it would've been nice to have a nice Christmas. We could've eaten until we felt like throwing up. Had snowball fights with everybody else. Jesus, sometimes Miranda Gardner follows couples around and sprouts mistletoe over their heads. We could've just swapped presents and watched old movies. It would've been such a nice break... He didn't even get to finish days ten, eleven and twelve, and he was _so fucking proud of himself." _

She didn't swear much in front of Sally. Percy had told her once that it reminded Sally of Gabe sometimes, and Annabeth knew what a pain triggers were. Percy and Paul only swore back and forth at each other when Sally wasn't home to get it out of their systems. But she was so tired.

Sally switched spots on the couch and wrapped her arms around Annabeth.

"I think you'll be okay," Sally said quietly, kissing her hair. "And you know what?"

"What?" Annabeth asked quietly.

"I think that a bad Christmas makes a good Christmas _great," _she said. "Just you wait until next year, Annabeth. Just you wait."

And Sally's smile was so kind and promising and honest, that Annabeth couldn't help but take a deep breath, smile and believe her.

"I guess I can give him his Christmas present on his birthday," Annabeth said.

"That's the spirit," Sally said.

Paul, dodging some particularly unpleasant ninth grader essays to correct by cleaning bathrooms, strolled by with some Windex in hand and hummed: "Fa la la la la, la la la la."


End file.
